


Iconic

by Progman



Series: The Unstoppable Batwoman [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batwoman (Comic), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Bat Family, Characters Reading Fanfiction, Fluff and Humor, Friendship/Love, Gen, Queer Themes, Sapphic Solidarity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 04:32:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7830445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Progman/pseuds/Progman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years ago, at her lowest point, Kate Kane turned to the symbol of the Bat and found the purpose she'd been denied for being true to herself.  Now, that same Bat, the one she'd made her own, is used to help others in a way she never expected. Civilians think it’s a call for help. The bad guys think it’s a warning. For her, it was a call to arms. </p><p>For these women, it is a sign of solidarity.</p><p>
  <i>"I am one of you.  I am like you.  Neither of us needs to be alone.  We are safe together."</i>
</p><p>
  <a href="http://nerdsbianhokie.tumblr.com/post/149201396268/batwoman-as-a-sapphic-icon-in-gotham-though-it">Inspired by this Tumblr post.</a>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Iconic

“So. The internet thinks you’re gay.”

Kate snorted and popped a red batarang out of her gauntlet. “Then the collective internet is correct, Bette.” She whipped it at one of the practice targets positioned around her operational heart, the enormous tree at the center of the rebuilt Kane building, and the ‘rang deflected back into her hand. “Thought that was extremely common knowledge by now.”

“Hmmm, no. Not quite.” Bette spun around in her chair with a big cheeky grin. “Not for the _Batwoman,_ that is.”

“Really.” Kate twirled the batarang between her fingers and, with a flick of her wrist, slotted it back into its place. “Show me.” She walked over to Bette, and the central computer, which her cousin had apparently been using to browse something that _wasn’t_ duty related. “It’d be nice to be accurately represented by the media for once.”

Bette looked away. “Well, I think there’s all of _one_ story that writes you as jewish, but it was for a social media event a while back. Something about pseudo-nazis...”

“Hold on, _story_ ? As interesting as that thing about what I assume is me killing nazis sounds, I’m more concerned that you’ve been getting into _real person_ fan fiction that involve people you actually know.” Kate narrowed her eyes and looked down at Bette.“You haven’t been _writing_ \---”

Bette waved her off with a laugh. “Oh, God, _no_! Of course not! I’ve just been reading a lot of it---”

Kate smirked. “How much of it is porn?”

“Not...all of it,” she said, blushing. “And I only read the ones where ‘Batwoman’ doesn’t act or talk like you _at all_.” She huffed. “Besides, you all wear masks, so you’re already fictional characters, if you think about it.”

“No, I _get_ that part, but---” Kate rubbed her eyes and spun Bette back around towards the monitors. “And how would you even know how I would or wouldn’t act intimately---”

“Easy. I know you’re not an emotionally raw open book who bawls over every confession of love.” Bette cracked her knuckles. “Or at the drop of a hat. For everything.”

“Touche.”

Bette started scrolling through respectively large archive of strangely titled stories, most of them with a little red ‘venus’ symbol in the top left corner. “See anything that catches your eye?

Kate wrinkled her nose. “Besides the three that have me paired up with _Batman_?” She shrugged. “I guess that really long one with Diana. Save it for me; I think I might read it for a laugh.”

“Good choice. It’s easily the best one of that ship.” Bette perked up. “Uh, _ship,_ is short for relationshipping---”

“Bette, I know what shipping is. I grew up on Xena.” Kate donned her helmet and grinned. “I’m not nearly _that_ old.”

 

* * *

 

Kate made it a point to swing by the border of Burnside and Midtown whenever she went out on patrol. It was a decently sized commercial district, unofficially known as the Grind, but it also happened to be the home of the most popular queer nightclubs in Gotham. So, yes, _Molly’s_ was there, too.

The one lesbian dive bar she couldn’t let go of. Still felt safe. Like home.

Which was why she was perched on its roof, and most often was. She increased her cowl’s magnification and scanned the area, all of which was bathed in neon and rain, as it always was. The night was still young, so the rowdiest of clubs weren’t quite booming yet, but there were signs of activity.

Life. Happiness.

Kate could afford to stay a few minutes more, or until the Belfry sent her an alert. Just to be safe.

She heard _Molly’s_ side door open, the dulcet tones of a live singer drifting through the air, and peaked over the edge of the roof. Two women walked out, their hoods up to shield them from the rain. The taller one pressed the other against the wall, and they started to make out.

Kate looked away with a smile. Okay. Time was up. Needed to move on. She shot her grapnel into the air and launched up over the rooftops, making her way north towards Old Wayne Tower. She only made it a few blocks before she needed to stop. Kate rolled into a landing atop an apartment complex and peered over the side and into the alleyway.  

“---c’mon, where are you two going?!” said a clearly plastered man, stumbling after another two women, girls really. “Don’t be fuckin’ teases!”

The girls kept walking. One of them turned back to look, but the other grabbed her hand and pulled her back.

“Are you ignoring me?! Hey! HEY!” he started to yell, breaking off into a sprint. “Don’t you walk away from me! You out lookin’ for a good time---”

Kate scowled and leaped off of the building, landing right between the drunkard and the two girls. The three of them yelped and the man hopped backward, falling back off his feet. “They’re not.” Kate picked him up by the collar and slammed him into the brick. “ _But I am._ Why don’t you tell me what you were going to do to them, and we’ll see if I’m game,” she snarled. “How’s that sound?”

The man pissed himself and looked everywhere but her eyes. “I---I wasn’t going to do anything---” He shook his head and shivered. “I swear, I was just playing! I swear!”

“Nothing? Good…” She covered his mouth and shattered his wrist, muffling his scream. “Next time you go out at night, and you find yourself wanting to do ‘nothing’, _I’m coming for you._ And I won’t be nearly as gentle as I was tonight.” Kate slowly removed her hand from his face. “Are we clear?”

He nodded frantically. “Crystal, Mrs. Batman!”

Kate blinked. “Did...did you just…” She furrowed her brow and buried the laughter for later. “Do you _want_ me to break your other wrist?”

“What? No! I thought---you mean you’re _not_ married to the big guy?”

“And by that logic, _Batgirl_ is our daughter, is that what you thought?”

The man’s eyes widened. “...kinda, yeah.”

Kate side-eyed the two girls. “Call the police.” She grabbed his neck and electrocuted him, her taser gloves crackling to life for a few brief seconds, before tossing him down onto the wet concrete. Unconscious.

“Thank you.”

Kate perked up and turned to face the two young women, finally getting a good look at them. Redhead and a latina. Couldn’t have been older than eighteen. Scared, angry, and in wide-eyed awe. Guess God didn’t feel like being subtle that evening. “I can stay until the police arrive, if you’d like.”

The redhead nodded and the latina inched closer to her, looking over her shoulder every few seconds, trying to...hide their clasped hands between one another. Then Kate noticed the stamp on the back of their palms; they’d just been to _Molly’s._ Fake IDs, clearly, not that she hadn’t done that a thousand times while at West Point. Were they worried she’d turn them in or---

No. No, of course that wasn’t it. It was _never_ that.

Damnit. She had to say _something_ . Not with them looking like some sort of _divine guilt trip._

"It's okay to feel scared, you know," she said. "We all are, sometimes."

The redhead shook her head. Too eager. "We're not scared. We're fine."

Kate shook her head. "You don't have to lie to me. To everyone else, it's not the worst idea, but not to me."

"What?" 

“I said you don't have to lie. I know what you’re feeling.” Kate took a deep breath. “I’ve felt that fear; that I didn’t know myself or that I wasn’t being true to who I was. What they’d do to me, if they found out. And all the shame that comes with it, no matter how hard you try to push it out of your head.”

“...wait, are you…?” The latina looked between the redhead and Kate. “The hell do you think you are, anyway?!”

“Does it matter?” Kate shrugged. “I get that anger, too. That rage and self-hatred; deluding yourself into thinking that you’re weak, because you’re not loud. Because you’re not taking a stand every minute of every day.” She leaned against the brick and crossed her arms. “Because living safely is to live a lie, when everyone _else_ is fighting a war without end, and you’ve no idea if you’re fit to fight. If you ever have been. If you ever will be.”

The two girls continued to stare at her, eyes as wide as could be. Heh. Night to remember for them.

“But you keep pushing anyway, right? In any way you can, just so you can breath. For every damn inch, because you know, deep down, it’s worth the effort, to get your hands dirty. So someone else never has to.” Kate tilted her head. “I wish I’d been told, years ago, that every step we take, it’s not _for_ us. It’s for those who come after. For every scared, confused little girl who feels she’s all alone in the world…”

Her cowl’s HUD blinked an alert from the Belfry. Something about Killer Croc. Police sirens blared down the street, and the lights came into view. Good timing. She was getting a little grandiose.

Kate unhooked her grapnel from her belt. “Things are better than when I was your age, and they’ll be better still when you are mine. But don’t forget how they are now.” She shot off into the sky, leaving the girls behind.

But not out of her cowl’s extended audio range.

“ _...did she just come out to us?”_

“ _I think so.”_

“ _Okay. Just checking.”_  

 

* * *

 

“Let me get this straight. It’s like Yelp. But for crime scenes,” said Kate, scrolling through the BatApp on her phone. The Mud Room was resetting itself, so they were forced to wait in each other’s company in the Belfry for the next ten minutes or so. Which wasn’t a negative at all. Except that Clayface had to stay behind thanks to some weird technical issues. “And you...rate them.”

Steph shrugged. “Yeah, pretty much. It’s not _supposed_ to be used like that, but it’s what I do.”

Kate exchanged a look with Cass. “It sends a very strange message. You understand that, right?”

“Odd,” said Cass, nodding. “Not helpful.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“What? There’s nothing strange about it.” Steph waved them off and scoffed. “It’s harmless!”

“Uh huh.” Kate narrowed her eyes and read off the screen. “...' _spoiled_ a mugging. One-and-done, but still satisfying to know that lady got to keep her super weirdly shaped purse. I think it was supposed to look like a pug, but bigger? And also a bag? Anyway, three out of five Bats. Mostly because that purse is seriously bugging me.’”

Steph held up her palms. “Okay, _maybe_ it comes off as too casual---”

“Nearly all of these are _geo-tagged_ with the rest of the team!” Kate scowled. “You’re just handing out intel to anyone with a smart phone!”

Cass looked up at Kate. “Unsafe.”

“Damn right it is!”

Steph crossed her arms. “Well, if you two looked a little closer, you’d notice something very important.”

Kate narrowed her eyes. “And?”

Steph grinned. “I gave _every_ crime we spoiled five out five bats!”

“That’s not---” Kate pinched her brow. “Steph, good lord, _you’re compromising operational security_.”

“Look, we all have our ways of dealing with the crap in our life, so here’s mine, okay?!” Steph pouted. “And it’s not like _you_ didn’t the same thing when you told those kids you were gay. Double standard!”

“Wait I---” Kate wrinkled her nose. “...did you not know that?”

“Of course I did! But now _everyone_ knows the Batwoman is gay!” Steph threw up her arms. “So. Yeah. Double-freaking-standard.” She huffed. “You know what? Here! I’ll show you!” Steph stomped over to the terminal and smacked on the giant monitors, quickly bringing up several hundred windows worth of social media. All of them with a very similar titles. “Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Yik Yak; all the local gotham vigilante fandom stuff has been _blowing up_ about you for like, two weeks!”

“Oh my God.” Kate gaped, reading the big bold page headers. “Is the Batwoman Gay? Batwoman: Lesbian Crimefighter. Gotham’s New Sapphic Icon. Who is the Batwoman---” Kate’s eyes widened. “Oh, absolutely not. We are _not_ doing that one again.”

“Don’t even worry about it.” Steph shook her head. “I actually checked in on that --- okay I had _Barbara_ do it, who apparently has some crazy archive of all this kind of stuff on some server she won’t let me see --- and your name comes up a few times, but nobody really takes that seriously anymore.”

“As they shouldn’t.” Kate laughed once. “God bless the judicial system.”

“Pbbth, yeah, more like God bless---”

Kate crossed her arms. “I won. You saw it. You were there.”

“I saw you _cheat_.”

Kate raised a brow. “Your point?”

“...nothing.” Steph cleared her throat. “Just saying you did.”

“I know, and it worked.” Kate walked closer to the giant monitors. “Huh. Some of these are interesting. See, there’s my logo with rainbow stripes, with bisexual pride colors, and pansexual pride colors. Lipstick lesbian, and of course the battle axe…” She chuckled. "Always loved that one."

Cass looked up at Kate, her head tilted. Curious.

“The axe, or the one with the lips?” asked Kate.

“Lips.”

“It’s the flag for a ‘lipstick lesbian’, which basically means...” Kate scratched the back of her head. “Someone who only likes women, except they look more like Steph instead of like me. The kind of person you’d see on TV, or a movie. Does that make sense?”

Cass nodded.

“The battle axe, though, that you understand? I just want to make sure.”

“Warrior.” Cass pointed to herself. “Soldier.” And then at Kate. “Must...fight together.”

Kate smirked. “Very true.”

“You guys! You’re missing the point!” Steph waved her arms. “Yeah, there are like, a hundred thousand posts of people thanking you for being strong, or whatever, and giving them the courage to be who they truly are and come out and accept themselves and all that great stuff but it’s _still a double standard._ ”

“Oh for God’s sake…” Kate rolled her eyes. “Clearly, I had no idea this was going on---”

“Okay, fine, I’m sorry I didn’t think all of that through!” said Steph. “I’ll stop geo-tagging, and just...write it all down in a journal or whatever. Is that better?”

“Yes. Thank you. And for the record, I never said I was gay---”

“Everyone already debated that.” Steph tabbed through the pages until she got to a very long and emotionally raw blog post. “Apparently, this is from one of the girls who you ‘came out’ to a few weeks back. Says her name is Chelsea---”

“Okay, that’s enough. I’m glad so many feel empowered, but we have more important things to focus on. Not only that, but...” Kate clasped her hands together in front of her, shutting off the monitors. “I’m _not_ reading fan mail. I’m not Superman.”

Steph gave her a baffled look. “He does that? He doesn’t---does he _really_ do that?”

“Probably.”

 

* * *

 

Kate sat down across from Renee, her brow raised. Middle of the night, peak hours for _Molly’s,_ and Renee had called her with some vague request for drinks. If her ex were a petty woman, she’d think she was trying to make a point. But Renee wasn’t that, as far as Kate could recall. “You needed to run something by me?”

Renee chuckled. “Depends. What are you going to order?”

Kate shrugged. “Ginger ale for you, shot of bourbon and beer for me. Thinking maybe a lager.”

“Good. If you forgot I was an alcoholic _again,_ I was going to get worried.”

Kate furrowed her brow. “I didn’t forget---Oh! Is _that_ why you didn’t drink anything---”

Renee smirked. “---the last time you called _me_ here for late night advice? Yeah. Sometimes you get really caught up in your own stuff, Kate, that you can’t see what’s right in front of you, but rarely are you ever that careless.” She shrugged. “I sit down, there’s already a drink waiting for me, which is kind, but at the same time...frustrating.”

“It was non-alcoholic beer.” Kate pinched her brow. “Damnit, I must’ve launched into something and forgot to tell you that.”

“Doesn't surprise me.” Renee tilted her head. “So, I had an idea. Think it might be a little crazy, but you’re the only person I can ask to get a second opinion on it.”

Kate nodded. “Okay. Shoot.”

“I want to get a Batwoman tattoo.”

Kate stared at her for a moment before cracking into a short laugh. “No, you’re not. That’s funny, but you’re not.”

Renee just smiled. “Not the whole thing, obviously. Just the symbol. Maybe on the inside of my wrist.”

“Renee, you are _not_ a tattoo person." Kate stood from her seat. “Hold on, I need a drink for this conversation.”

Renee gestured her off. “I’ll be here.”

Kate made her way towards the bar and flashed the bartender a smile as they made eye contact. A _Batwoman_ tattoo. Ridiculous. “Hey, could I get a---actually, what do you have in a lager? Thinking on the lighter side, but not _lite beer_ , you know?”

“Oh, well,” The bartender leaned over the counter. “Aren’t you just lady luck. The distributor we use nailed a new contract with one of those midwestern craft beer companies, so we’ve got quite the selection for the time being…” she said, continuing on about something regarding geese and islands. And brothers. Or something. But Kate couldn’t hear a damn word.

All she could do was stare at was the red bat tattoo on the inside of the woman’s wrist. _Her_ bat. It was freshly inked, too. Very cute, Renee. Call her down in the middle of the night just for a laugh.

“Like the design?” asked the bartender.

“Hmm?” Kate perked up. “Yes, I’m sorry, it’s just---I haven’t seen that one before.”

“Well, it’s picking up steam like you wouldn’t believe. Gorgeous vigilante turns out to be one of _us,_ saves those kids and goes out of her way to tell them that she’s just like them? I mean, come on, that’s a no brainer. There are heroes, and then there are _icons_ , you know?”

Kate nodded. “Yeah, I guess so. Okay, I’ll have a ginger ale, a shot of Booker, and one of those Goose Island things.”

“You got it. Which one?”

Kate bit her lip. “The, uh, let’s go with the 312? Urban Wheat?”

The bartender smiled. “Good choice; be right back.”

Kate turned around to give Renee a look, but she was messing with her phone. Damn. Well, she could wait another minute or two---

Her eyes flicked down to another red bat tattoo. On a woman’s ankle, as she walked past her, laughing at some joke Kate couldn’t make out. And she spotted another two, once again on the inner wrists of a couple sitting at the table a dozen feet from her. And then she just couldn’t _stop_ seeing them. Everywhere.

Nearly every other woman had one, that she could see. Some just the red bat, others with rainbow stripes. Bisexual pride, pansexual pride, the lips, the battleaxe; every sapphic variation and permutation.  

Kate felt a chill run up her spine, and all of a sudden, the inking, that pride she’d felt when she’d gotten the large naval star to adorn her upper back, came rushing back. As if she were in her early twenties again, consuming every bit of queer history she could get her hands on. Because what else was she supposed to do? She’d lost her purpose, her only dream. All of her wealth was meaningless when she couldn’t muster up the energy to use it for anyone but herself---

“Miss? Your drinks?”

Kate nodded and handed the bartender a fifty. “Keep it. Thank you.” She scooped up the tray without a word and walked back to Renee in a daze. She set the drinks down on the table and slipped back into her booth, almost forgetting to breath.

Renee took her ginger ale with a soft smile. “Queer teen suicide rates are down. A lot.”

Kate covered her eyes. “Oh my God…” she whispered, her breath shaky.

“MCU’s had _a lot_ of calls from civilians asking if they can put a translucent red tarp over the batsignal.” She took a sip of her drink. “If Maggie was still in charge, I think it might’ve happened.”

Kate whimpered, almost snickering. “No chance in hell.”

“Maybe, maybe not…” Renee shrugged. “Still, you should think about helping fund some sort of demonstration for this once Gotham Pride rolls back around.”

Kate held back her tears, barely. “Yeah. Yeah, maybe I’ll do that. If it sticks---”

Renee raised a brow. “They’re tattoos, Kate. It already stuck.” She leaned back in her seat. “So. Think you might get one? A Batwoman tattoo?”

Kate snorted into a tired laugh. “Sure. A giant bright red one, right on my chest.”

“Oof. Sounds painful.”

Kate sniffled into a smile. “Not as much as it used to be.”

**Author's Note:**

> The moment I read that post, I teared up, and knew I had to do something with it. Hopefully this does it justice. And for those of you who are following my long-form Batwoman fic, [Trial by Blood](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7191470/chapters/16321421), yes that is what Steph and Kate were vaguely referring to in the Belfry. Obviously, Kate isn't sent to jail for life and her secret isn't out to the whole world, but I won't spoil the specifics in a different fic! Also, that little gag with the drunkard thinking Kate and Bruce are married is a nod to the original Kathy Kane...who WAS Mrs. Batman. 
> 
> I made the two girls Kate saves spooky stand-ins for her and Renee because I was having a hard time finding a situation where Kate would feel that talking about this stuff would feel absolutely necessary, as it felt...very forced otherwise. Hopefully, it feels organic here. 
> 
> Molly's is the same bar that Kate first met Batman outside of, and one she often frequented beforehand. Also there's no reason to think that she doesn't STILL go there. At least, that's my headcanon until proven otherwise. I based the design off of the opening to Tec Comics #937, which should be rather obvious since that was when we last saw Renee, for now. Oh, and that BatApp Steph uses was something that showed up in the Burnside issues of Batgirl, and honestly that idea has been in my head for a while, so I'm glad I could to fit it in here as an organic segue to social networking and operational security. Not trying to imply Steph is dumb or anything like that, but sometimes she just doesn't think things through all the way, which is part of her charm. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading, and leave a comment/kudos, if you're able! :)


End file.
